February 10, 2000: an earthquake strikes at 7:13 in the morning, and the total information control system that maintained order in the city stops working the moment the infrastructure fails. The earthquake has done something stranger than knock out power — it has physically separated the city from the surrounding landform, creating an island with no external contact. Citizens, suddenly unmonitored, quickly reveal what was always underneath the enforced calm. Money, violence, drugs, and territorial control fill the vacuum. The survivors name what remains of their severed city Eden — the last paradise, if that phrase can survive the irony. The story begins a decade later, in 2010.